The successor to the OpenCable™ Application Platform (OCAP™) system, Tru2way™, is a digital media platform that facilitates the delivery of interactive digital content over the cable video network. This interactive content can be anything from interactive program guides, interactive ads, chat portals, interactive games to web browsers, voting and polling systems and banking facilities. The technology promises to streamline television and audio-visual entertainment systems by reducing the number of remote devices required per device, simplifying the set-up procedures, and introducing a greater sense of the plug-and-play ethos into its philosophy.
The Tru2way™ platform is the brainchild of Cable Television Laboratories, inc., who license the technology to the cable industry, program makers, applications developers, and those consumer electronics manufacturers who make Tru2way™ compliant devices. Numbered among license holders are some of the biggest names in the world of digital manufacturing and include companies such as Sony, LG Electronics, Thomson, Cisco, Motorola, Panasonic, Samsung, Texas Instruments and Toshiba.
The Tru2way™ system is a Sun Microsystems, Java-based application suite and is already deployed on a range of devices, from personal computers to mobile telephones, and provides a universal translator that can be incorporated into digital media devices capable of receiving Tru2way™ and that adhere to its specifications (OpenCable Host 2.1).
The Tru2way™ platform is an innovation that is ground breaking in that it allows users and subscribers to access digital services such as pay-per-view programs and video-on-demand (VOD) while not requiring customers to subscribe to a digital cable operator. It is equally groundbreaking in its "openness" to new programmers and developers who want to design and deploy new content on a massively accessible media. The Java.net platform allows users to understand the specifications required of new applications and provides a means of interacting with other developers in an effort to better coordinate projects and content development.
The applications that the Tru2way™ platform allows users to create are of two types: bound and unbound applications. Bound applications are channel specific and are only available inside that channel’s stream. These bound applications are usually small and therefore amenable to large scale deployment over the various digital networks. Conversely, unbound applications are not tied solely to one channel and are therefore available over a number of different streams. Unbound applications are typically used as channel guides, navigation systems, and generally those utilities which are required to be available irrespective of the current stream or its content.
